Bio-oil production from a lignocellulosic biomass and its fuel characteristics

Abstract

Abstract A wide research is going on in the field of renewable energy resources to shelter the scarcity of conventional fossil fuels. As we look back, from the beginning of Earths formation, a tremendous amount of the energy stored inside the earth. Until the start of 19th century man was unaware of this treasure and used lignocellulosic biomass / wood biomass as an energy source of which people unaware of its true potential. But, as fossil fuel sources were discovered, the excavation started to meet the energy demand which obviously replaced the biomass. Then from the petroleum crude oil, petrochemicals took birth and the industrial revolution changed the prospective of entire world. Now, in this first quarter of the 21st century when the population is gigantic and demand for energy sources has increased to the enormous level, fossil fuels are being consumed like never before and now they are diminishing with very fast rate leading towards the energy crisis. So, to overcome this problem; need for the replacements, blends of fossil fuels arises and as a result we are going back in time to utilize another huge source of energy i.e. Biomass. Lignocellulosic biomass can be thermally converted into biofuels by various technologies. One of such most effective and lucrative technology is pyrolysis. Pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass convert it into bio-oil, bio-char and pyrolysis gas, these all have high energy content and potential in them. In this deliberated work, authors conducted a pyrolysis experiment on a lignocellulosic biomass which is available as a solid waste on long and far terrestrial region though barely investigated. Temperature of the reaction was set at 500 ºC at which the bio-oil resulted its highest heating value of 17.093 MJ/kg and that of bio-char is 30.768 MJ/kg. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) showed number of functional groups present and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GCMS) resulted in huge number of chemical compounds present in the biooil. Then we studied flow behaviour of bio-oil by Interfacial Rheometer and it demonstrated Shear-thinning behaviour. Thus, the study reveals fuel potential of untouched biomass in terms of bio-oil and its transport phenomenon.